The Pointlessness of Five 9's Reliability

Wed Apr 24 23:57:46 UTC 2002

Even disregarding the issue of whether 99.999% network reliability is
possible, people have made it abundantly clear that they don't want
it.

In this case I define "to want" as "to be willing to pay even a little
bit extra for".

This is even the case in POTS telephony.  I know lots of people who
are happy to use 2 cpm long distance from Priceline et al, even though
half the time the call doesn't go through.

-- 
John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869
johnl at iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, 
Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail